ISPs have had the ability to do this for quite a while, the reason they don't report their customers for piracy is because they would lose them all to other ISPs who promise privacy when using P2P apps.
I know a Small Businesses ISP in the UK that tried blocking Kazaa traffic on their routers using some kind of packet inspection, because nearly 60% of all traffic was Kazaa and it was bogging their infrastructure down. Some customers loved it since it meant they didn't have to do anything to stop their employees from possibly incriminating their company, but many others claimed it was a breach of service contract and threatened to cancel their subscriptions. In the end they had to allow the traffic again or lose loads of business.
I can't see many large ISPs shooting themselves in the foot like that IMHO especially the likes of AOL who are losing loads of customers at the moment anyway.
That goes against their previous rants against space and format-shifting. RIAA/MPAA wants you to purchase the same license again and again every time a new media format comes out.
The only "restriction" they mentioned was if you owned the audio tape version of a song you do not have a license to the CD version because it is of a higher quality.
Here's a link to the interview I mentioned > clicky, specifially it is Matt Oppenheim from the Recording Industry Association of America who says you are free to copy your own music to other formats e.g. mp3 etc
I read recently an interview with someone from the RIAA and he talked about this, if I understood correctly what was said he claimed that buying a CD means you have a license to listen to and own the copyright material on the CD.
This means you can record the contents to tape, rip it to your iPod, record it on a mini-disc etc, essentially do what you want with it that doesn't infringe on copyright laws. e.g. you can't broadcast it or sell copies down the local market.
Regardless if your CDs are stolen you still own a license to have a copy of the contents of the CD. Technically speaking when you buy a CD you are getting the CD, case and inlays for free, what you pay for is the right to own a copy of the music. This means you can store it in whatever format you want e.g. ogg, mp3, wma, 8-track. This is also why you can legally make backups of your media.
So I think I'm right in saying that downloading a replacement copy of music you own is OK even if your original CDs were stolen. Presumably you would have to provide proof of purchase if you were caught. That said this proposed new law would make even obtaining a legal backup to your music illegal!
That's very true. I can't comment on the whole web dev world as a whole, but I know a lot of web developers who all design for IE first. Fixing a design to look "right" in Netscape/Mozilla and Opera is an "added cost" to the client if they will pay for it. I think you're right to say a lot of people think a site is "broken" if it's not right in IE, even if it's not standards compliant.
I would argue that a lot of web developers are quite happy with their IE mono-culture and would like to see it continue. After all it's less work to get a design right in just IE rather than three or four different browsers. There are still loads of sites out there with a "Best Viewed in Internet Explorer" logo, many of which even lock out non-IE browsers! e.g. MSN...;)
The other problem is IE has specific features like certain CSS attributes, JavaScript functions and things like the rich text editor that aren't offered in other browsers. Also I've noticed that IE's Javascript tends to be more idiot friendly. Code that has an error in it will often run even though Netscape/Opera won't which I think has further ingrained some web developers into using IE.
Unless MS is forced to remove IE from Windows as default IE will remain in the dominant position regardless of which browser has the best features. Having AOL and MSN both using IE must help too.
Chances are that casual PC owners who just do a bit of browsing, a bit of emailing and type the occasional letter will have not even considered that anything other than IE exsists.
Like the way people look for the "Microsoft Word" link on Linux boxes to type a letter. MS has so ingrained the general user base with their apps and their names that it will be an uphill struggle to get people to even realise there are alternative browsers out there.:(
I've got an idea!
Lets flood the P2P network with fake files that have the same names and file sizes as genuine music files that the RIAA would be looking for. OK yeah sounds stupid, but keep reading.:)
Then when the RIAA knocks on your door you can claim you were actually trying to help them by poisoning P2P networks to get the "evil" pirates.
After they falsely accuse you, get on TV/Radio/Web telling everyone about the RIAA's false accusations and after a few reports of false prosecution they'll have to stop trying to sue individuals because there will be too much doubt over them actually finding any genuine file swappers.
You wouldn't need to do this for very long either, after 5 or 6 false accusations they'd stop and you could remove your "fake" files from the network. Sure in the short term we're killing P2P ourselves, but if it stops the RIAA then I'm for it.:)
Hurrah, now we need someone to re-release the Spectrum and we can all relive the golden years of our childhood- arguing in the playground over which machine is better!
And if someone can re-release the old BBC Micro both Spectrum and C64 owners will have someone to ridicule. Chucky Egg in all green? Nah.
The 9800 is still the better purchase, the 5900 has little to no overclocking room and needs a massive heatsink to remain "cool".
The manufacture process for the 9800 is more mature on the other hand, and it usually clocks about 60Mhz beyond stock for the GPU and about 20Mhz for the RAM giving 440/370, which makes it comfortably faster than the 5900.
Slashdot Mirror
ISPs have had the ability to do this for quite a while, the reason they don't report their customers for piracy is because they would lose them all to other ISPs who promise privacy when using P2P apps. I know a Small Businesses ISP in the UK that tried blocking Kazaa traffic on their routers using some kind of packet inspection, because nearly 60% of all traffic was Kazaa and it was bogging their infrastructure down. Some customers loved it since it meant they didn't have to do anything to stop their employees from possibly incriminating their company, but many others claimed it was a breach of service contract and threatened to cancel their subscriptions. In the end they had to allow the traffic again or lose loads of business. I can't see many large ISPs shooting themselves in the foot like that IMHO especially the likes of AOL who are losing loads of customers at the moment anyway.
I read recently an interview with someone from the RIAA and he talked about this, if I understood correctly what was said he claimed that buying a CD means you have a license to listen to and own the copyright material on the CD.
This means you can record the contents to tape, rip it to your iPod, record it on a mini-disc etc, essentially do what you want with it that doesn't infringe on copyright laws. e.g. you can't broadcast it or sell copies down the local market.
Regardless if your CDs are stolen you still own a license to have a copy of the contents of the CD. Technically speaking when you buy a CD you are getting the CD, case and inlays for free, what you pay for is the right to own a copy of the music. This means you can store it in whatever format you want e.g. ogg, mp3, wma, 8-track. This is also why you can legally make backups of your media.
So I think I'm right in saying that downloading a replacement copy of music you own is OK even if your original CDs were stolen. Presumably you would have to provide proof of purchase if you were caught. That said this proposed new law would make even obtaining a legal backup to your music illegal!
That's very true. I can't comment on the whole web dev world as a whole, but I know a lot of web developers who all design for IE first. Fixing a design to look "right" in Netscape/Mozilla and Opera is an "added cost" to the client if they will pay for it. I think you're right to say a lot of people think a site is "broken" if it's not right in IE, even if it's not standards compliant.
;)
I would argue that a lot of web developers are quite happy with their IE mono-culture and would like to see it continue. After all it's less work to get a design right in just IE rather than three or four different browsers. There are still loads of sites out there with a "Best Viewed in Internet Explorer" logo, many of which even lock out non-IE browsers! e.g. MSN...
The other problem is IE has specific features like certain CSS attributes, JavaScript functions and things like the rich text editor that aren't offered in other browsers. Also I've noticed that IE's Javascript tends to be more idiot friendly. Code that has an error in it will often run even though Netscape/Opera won't which I think has further ingrained some web developers into using IE.
Unless MS is forced to remove IE from Windows as default IE will remain in the dominant position regardless of which browser has the best features. Having AOL and MSN both using IE must help too. Chances are that casual PC owners who just do a bit of browsing, a bit of emailing and type the occasional letter will have not even considered that anything other than IE exsists. Like the way people look for the "Microsoft Word" link on Linux boxes to type a letter. MS has so ingrained the general user base with their apps and their names that it will be an uphill struggle to get people to even realise there are alternative browsers out there. :(
I've got an idea! Lets flood the P2P network with fake files that have the same names and file sizes as genuine music files that the RIAA would be looking for. OK yeah sounds stupid, but keep reading. :)
Then when the RIAA knocks on your door you can claim you were actually trying to help them by poisoning P2P networks to get the "evil" pirates.
After they falsely accuse you, get on TV/Radio/Web telling everyone about the RIAA's false accusations and after a few reports of false prosecution they'll have to stop trying to sue individuals because there will be too much doubt over them actually finding any genuine file swappers.
You wouldn't need to do this for very long either, after 5 or 6 false accusations they'd stop and you could remove your "fake" files from the network. Sure in the short term we're killing P2P ourselves, but if it stops the RIAA then I'm for it. :)
Hurrah, now we need someone to re-release the Spectrum and we can all relive the golden years of our childhood- arguing in the playground over which machine is better!
And if someone can re-release the old BBC Micro both Spectrum and C64 owners will have someone to ridicule. Chucky Egg in all green? Nah.
The 9800 is still the better purchase, the 5900 has little to no overclocking room and needs a massive heatsink to remain "cool". The manufacture process for the 9800 is more mature on the other hand, and it usually clocks about 60Mhz beyond stock for the GPU and about 20Mhz for the RAM giving 440/370, which makes it comfortably faster than the 5900.